My Sister Wrecked My Car

It turned into a lesson in Lean from a customer point of view

Photo by Documerica on Unsplash edited on Canva

OK, it wasn’t her fault. The woman behind her was on the phone, didn’t notice the red light, and BOOM. She and my Mom who was a passenger are OK, our 2023 vehicle with 6,000 miles was damaged.

This is the story of how I chose where it would be repaired.

First I went to one of the chain companies. Their big facility is on prime real estate on the highest-traffic road in town. The bright paint and shrubbery were appealing. They were polite and friendly, the young man took a quick look at the car, a few pictures, and gave me a quote. He basically met my minimum expectations.

His desk was cluttered, the carpet hadn’t been vacuumed recently. Not really dirty, but not really clean.

The place overall was cluttered, even the receptionist had too many side projects piled around her. Boxes, presumably of parts, were piled in the hallway. The shop was clean-ish. Most importantly people were constantly walking back and forth.

My other visit was to a local body shop. It is out of the way on a side street and seemed too small to do much business. No shrubs, just a white-painted building, and paved parking. They had been around for a while so I went in.

I walked in expecting someone to do a quote on the spot. I was informed they work by appointment, so I set one for the next day. The lobby had no clutter, I didn’t feel like I was interrupting the receptionist.

At my appointment, the general manager did the estimate. He spent twice the time looking over the vehicle and found small issues that had not been noticed. He talked about the radar built into bumpers in addition to other details. Their quote was 50% higher because of their attention to detail.

The shop area in this spartan building was clean and organized, with no piles of boxes. Technicians were not walking back and forth. Stuff was getting done even though no one seemed to be rushing. The technician’s clothes were even cleaner than in the other place.

I wasn’t surprised to see a 5S poster. The place looked like they follow Lean practices. I asked the GM, and sure enough, he was building a Lean culture in his facility.

You can guess who is doing the repairs. They made the process seamless, giving me a schedule of when parts were ordered when I could bring the car in, when I should expect it back, and coordinated a rental car. They even have a portal to check daily progress.

Typical customers might not consciously notice some of those things, but they see them even if they don’t realize they do. It’s those subconscious clues that add up.

Thanks for reading!

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